H.K. refugee patrol is Army’s worst

Press, 23 September 1980, Page 23

H.K. refugee patrol is Army’s worst

By

DAVID FAIRHALL

in Hong Kong reprinted from the “Sunday Times.’’

Yong Siu Ming is aged nine, with deep black Chinese hair and a blue flowered trousersuit One recent night she lay with her mother and father among the mangrove swamps until the light of the Chinese Communist patrol boat had disappeared round a bend in the muddy Sham Chun River. Then she waded into its turbulent current and struck out for the Hong Kong border on the far side. Like many others who attempted the crossing under cover of that night’s rainstorms, she probably had an inflated plastic cushion to help keep her afloat The marshes are littered with them. Somehow, she and her parents made it to the British side. There, the men of A Company, the Queen’s Own Highlanders, were waiting, crouching under low canvas shelters with their Belfast-style nightsights trained on the huddled groups crawling ashore, and quietly letting them filter through the first of the riverside fishponds before pouncing to arrest them.

The Yang family was sniffed out by a German Shepherd tracker dog. Siu Ming’s father made a successful dash for the river and swam back to China. Mother and daughter stayed the night, squatting wet and miserable on the floor of the Highlanders’ rest hut, two of the 60 illegal immigrants, or "Us” as the soldiers always call them, picked up before morning on that short stretch of’river. All told, the 1000 or so British troops deployed along the 40km border had captured more than 500 would-be immigrants in the previous 24 hours. They take pride in this military efficiency. But it is perhaps the most miserable job’they do anywhere in the world, including Northern Ireland, and the problem it reflects is every bit as daunting for the colonial administration as the continuing stream of Vietnamese boat people. Until 1979, when the Peking regjme began to

relax its ideological grip and television sets capable of receiving Hong Kong’s gaudy programmes began to spread through neighbouring Communist provinces, only a thin trickle of illegal immigrants filtered through the border patrols. In 1977, just over 1000 were caught and sent back to China; in 1978, the number rose to 8000; and then came a sudden surge to the 1979 total of nearly 90,000. For every illegal immigrant caught on the British side, the security authorities reckon that three have already been picked up by the Chinese Army and that a fifth has made it through to the safe urban areas in the south of Hong Kong. .That means half a million people are trying to escape each year, lured by the brighter lights of capitalism. It also means that Hong Kong’s overcrowded population would douole in 10 years if they were allowed through. By comparison, the total number of Vietnamese boat people who have landed in the colony since 1975, including the sudaen flood in 1979, adds up to 93,000, about the same as the annual influx of illegal Chinese immigrants escaping detection. The big difference is that the Vietnamese refugees are not expected to stay. Some ot them, admittedly, have been sitting despondently in their overcrowded transit camps . for many months, waiting for a chance of resettlement in the United States, Canada, Britain, and elsewhere. The same can hardly be said of the illegal immigrants streaming across from China. They cut their way through the new 4.5 m-high border fence on the Hong Kong side. They swim the Sham Chun at the eastern end of the border, many dying trapped in the mud as the tide rises. They brave the sharks m Mirs Bay at the western end.

Increased patrolling by the Chinese Army, with an estimated 20,000 men at its disposal in the border areas, must have had some effect. Certainly the number of British troops on the Hong Kong side has greatly increased since 1979. But hundreds of young men and - women

still try to get through each night, most of them exhausted by up to a week’s march through the hills from their village commune, probably running out of food before they reach the border. Some individuals have been caught eight or nine times and have repeatedly been sent back to face a fine or imprisonment on the Communist side. Two men I spoke to through an interpreter seemed _to think thev would be given the choice of something like a $lO fine or 10 days in jail. It may not sound too bad but according to what the Queen’s Own Highlanders have heard and seen, those captured on the other side are oftep badly beaten up and threatened with bayonets. The unit I was with was armed with nothing more than broom handles and the youngsters manning. my particular ambush left even those behind to plunge straight into the dark, muddy fishponds and drag their quarry out Some evidently enjoyed the excitement of the hunt but not the pathetic sight of these refugees from Communism emerging into the light. “Seven thousand miles away in Berlin,’’ says one “we are helping them across.” So how did a job like this compare with Northern Ireland? "Just about the same. It’s boring. Most of the time you feel sorry for the poor bastards.” Siu Ming reacted with angry pride. After sipping a little water and offering her mother some, she scornfully poured the rest out of the door of the hut. A cheese sandwich was plonked back on the table. The company commander commented on her remarkable spirit A truculent young Scot called her a bitch. Either way she was due to be sent back over the border in a bus this afternoon. Yet by the curious “snakes and ladders” rules of this international game, if she and her parents had managed to reach home base in Hong Kong city, they could have queued up instead at the Immigration Department and have been issued with residents’ papers. As you can see, tney are thoroughly, British rules.- - ’ J